Revealing ‘Ideal’ Beauty Standards

A recent study performed by doctors in the United Kingdom determines what the “ideal” female body and beauty expectations are and shows how they are different around the world. Essentially, they asked the simple question “how do perceptions of beauty vary from around the globe” to

Essentially the doctors asked the simple question “how do the perceptions of beauty vary from around the globe”to ‘female graphic designers’ located in 18 different countries. The task given was for them to photoshop the image that you see below to portray the ‘ideal body and beauty expectation’ for their culture.

The images demonstrated Perceptions of Perfection in each country. The photoshopped images depict changes in everything from waistline to the width of arms, legs, and overall body weight, as well as hair and eye color edits. The female graphic artists objective was an effort to accurately reflect their cultures ‘ideal beauty and body standards.’

According to the studies press release, “The goal of this project is to better understand potentially unrealistic standards of beauty and body types to see how such pressures vary around the world.”

After our review of the studies findings and graphics. We found the results to be interesting when considering that here in the U.S. our obesity rates are skyrocketing to over 30% of the female population with an overall combined rate of both women and men reaching 60% and rising. Maybe it’s time for all of us to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Our thoughts are such that many of these “ideal” body types weren’t necessarily unattainable in most circumstances given the different cultures dietary and health parameters. For instance, in many countries, they simply don’t eat outat restaurants or fast food as we do here in the United States.

In regards, to the beauty perceptions we saw airbrushing being done to enhance smoother skin, and lessening wrinkles, which in all cultures that are an unreasonable beauty standard for ‘real women’ to reach. The changes to hair and eye color are indicative of opinion and what cultures promote as being the ‘ideal beauty.’